Lost count of the days… Orchha to Panjim

Well my fine friends, let me tell you, the Portuguese are not as silly as they look. I am typing this in my colonial-style bedroom, from my colonial style huge bed, opposite the table with the real rose in a Bombay sapphire bottle (not kidding), next to my fridge wherein one finds that strange and rare liquid gold: beer. But first things first. I left for Varanasi-station an hour before my train was due. This should’ve been more than enough, but something was brewing on the main street… My cyclerikshawala made it his sacred duty to get me to the station on time. So we bumped and skidded through the backstreets, colliding head-on with several cows on the way. Nearly running over a policeman, that would’ve wacked the rikshawala bigtime if I hadn’t been a western tourist. I think this was the first time someone actually deserved his tip. I got on my train just in time. Arriving in Jhansi in the early morning, I awaited dawn to go and find myself transport to Orchha. And what transport it was… A motoriksha with not one but two teenage drivers, and the biggest rikshasoundsystem ever seen. It actually had a subwoofer under the drivers seat. So at 7 in the morning, we were cruising along the Indian countryside with the latest bollywood hits thumping from the speakers. After a short, but well deserved crash in my palatial room, I set out to explore the 16-17^th century Bhundela ruins and palaces that dot the fields around the village for a day and a half. The entrancefee for the central palaces is a stunning 300Rs for one day. I am gonna be so out of money when I get home… And the thing is, the palaces are wonderful, but the outlying tombs and ruins, that are in fact free, and practically deserted and devoid of tourgroups, are ten times more scenic, As you will see when I succeed in uploading some pictures. Orchha is really just a village surrounded by fields, with irrigation channels, goats and flowers. It’s really nice and peaceful to just roam around a bit, especially in the morning. When I was little I wanted to work on a farm when I grew up. (After that, I wanted to be a vet. A few days ago I wanted to be Alexander Cunningham... Strange how these things change.) Except dashing through the countryside, getting dusty in search of semi-ruined temples, I also spent my time drinking freshly made pineapple-pomegranate juice, whenever I passed the main street. The juice-guy must have thought me some kind of junky. I think I went through 10 pineapples on two days.

And then there was yesterday. A day in which –get your maps of India out- I managed to get from Orchha to Jhansi to Delhi to Dabolim to Panjim in 14 hours. My train to Delhi was 90 minutes late, which made me quite nervous, since I had a flight to catch. So I said (don’t laugh), to the rikshawala (I don’t know what I was thinking), the following (I said don’t laugh): Please hurry (yes, can we get on with the story? Thank you). Now, these guys drive like madmen even when they’ve got nowhere in particular to go to. So saying something like that is, in retrospect, suicidal. I clung on for dear life while we drove up the wrong lane on the freeway, raced through a Tibetan bazaar, and slalomed through a military convoy. I got there in one piece, however, and wondrously, on time for a smooth checkin-security-sandwichcumicedtea-boarding flightprocess. As we were gaining height, I suddenly noticed something was missing. The riksha-deathride seems to have cured my fear of flying. It was dark by the time I caught a taxi to Panjim (state capital of Goa). Accommodation here is a pickle though, especially when arriving late at night, so I am stretching my budget a bit. Only for two nights. Unlike the rest of India, which was ruled by the stiff-upperlipped-greatbreakfasts-but-not-much-else-Brits, Goa was Portuguese until 1961. Walking through the city, you can definitely sense there’s something Mediterranean in the architecture and general way of life. And after North-India, it’s nice to finally see some women in the streets again. So that’s that for now. By tomorrow night I ought to get to Palolem, in the south of Goa, for some serious doing nothing at all, before getting back to Belgian Reality. Not that I don’t miss it (and you) just a little bit…